Rates from Bankrate.com

5 Gift Cards To Avoid For Holiday Shopping

Written by: Jason Notte11/18/13 - 8:30 AM EST

PORTLAND, Ore. (TheStreet) -- It's bad enough when someone phones it in and gets you a gift card. It's even worse when that card is absolute rubbish.

There are a lot of retailers, restaurants, grocers and other companies fighting through bankruptcy that may not be around by this time next year. Only an absolutely thoughtless dolt would spend $25 to $500 on a "gift" that may never be redeemed .

With 60% of shoppers telling the National Retail Federation that they want to get a gift card this holiday season, there's a lot of opportunity to get it wrong. A full 16% of potential gift-card buyers are concerned about the card expiring, while 2.2% don't like the idea of the retailer in question going bankrupt.

Considering that 9% of all gift-card givers don't even know what company the people they're buying for would want a card from, maybe just a little more thought should enter the decision.

To protect holiday shoppers' investments we consulted the folks at ScripSmart and looked into the financial well-being of gift-card-giving retailers across the country. After seeing some of the worst cards ScripSmart had on its roster, we came up with five cards holiday consumers might want to avoid this season. The plastic they're printed on may be worth more than the following companies in the days to come: